The New Dream
The New Dream is the first and only issue of ''After the Incal''.'' It was based on an idea Jodorowsky had about a metallic plague affecting the whole universe. Since ''After the Incal is an unfinished project, the issue ends with a cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved until the publication of Final Incal, a retelling of the same story. It was published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 2000 and colored by Studio Beltran. Plot John wakes up from a dream where he was falling down Suicide Alley into the Great Acid Lake. He remembers that someone gave him a mission but not remembers exactly what. John takes Barbax to try to reactivate his memory. An eye spy sees this and reports to central. The Supra-divinoid orders that at the first sign of remembrance John should be disintegrated. After taking the drugs, John starts to vaguely recollect how his memory was erased by the Technos, and remembering Luz and Kolbo-5’s death. When the eye spy sees John remembering it starts shooting at him, but Deepo barfs on it and they manage to escape. Suddenly a Techno Combat Robot appears but he manages to dodge it, and starts seeing people in the streets affected by a mysterious virus. The cybo-cops are looking for DiFool, so he escapes through a sewer hole. Since the sewers are so big, Supra-divinoid suggests using tantrin gas, even though it could affect other levels, the hunt for John must be top secret. Meanwhile, Diavaloo is reporting about the cloning of the Prezident into a new body (a metallic robot), when suddenly the biophage 13X virus starts to spread among the crowd, targeting all organic matter. John runs into the crow and wonders what’s happening, he sees one of the infected persons melt, and a tiny metallic spider comes out of the corpse. The cybo-cops surround John, but just when the Supra-divinoid is about to order his execution the connection is lost, the cybo-cops can’t move and PK-56’s don’t work either. Suddenly a small blonde girls appears, who’s apparently blocking the Techno-system, and tells John to come with her, DiFool thinks he must be dreaming but follows her. They fly to the surface, and see a black golem a top the Floating Palace, the Benthacodon, a being that poses a threat to all living things, who’s responsible for the biophage virus. DiFool, on the other hand, is valuable because he has learned the meaning of love. DiFool and shape-shifting robot use quartz speed to get away from City Shaft. Meanwhile, the Benthacodon takes control of the new Prezidential cloned body, eliminating the Prezident’s consciousness, functioning independent of the Techno system. In the City the virus spreads inside the dome, where metallic spiders keep coming out of the corpses, which the Benthacodon orders the cybo-cops to collect. While John gets away from City Shaft he sees war convoys and robot warships on the teflo-concrete surface. In the meantime, the Technopope informs the Supra-divinoid that the Benthacodon is now his master. The Bethacodon, in his new metallic robot body, enters the ultra-armored temple, and tells to the Supra-divinoid that his metal body is better than the neurons of the Supra-divinoid. The aristos have also betrayed the Supra-divinoid and have cloned themselves into a metallic body, which angers the Technopope since he’s the one who provides them with halos. The Bethacodon-prezident infects with the virus the Technopope, who melts and only leaves his essence remain: a consciousless mineral residue, which the Bethacodon-prezident throws at the Supra-divinoid destroying his great brain. The shape-shifting robot tells John that a war between the Bethacodon’s robots and supra-electronic scarabs is going on right now in the planet, and he must cross enemy lines. Back in the City the Bethacodon-prezident forces all the citizens to resign their bio-names and to clone themselves into a metallic form, by going into a proto-mineral cloner. John enters the battlefield, but he’s devoured by a supra-electronic scarab. However, DiFool isn’t actually dead, inside the scarab there’s in which Elohim, the white meca-mutant (who’s fighting against the black meca-mutant, Bethacodon) tells John that he was the first of his seven deaths, and that the Bethacodon has released the virus through the entire cosmos and that he’s the key that will solve the problem. Meanwhile Deepo is brought before the Bethacodon-prezident, who gives Deepo the ability to talk, but he doesn’t know where John is. The Bethacodon-prezident has prepared a tantalic probe that retains its full ultra-nuclear charge and is ready to launch on autopilot, but he needs a target. He taps into Deepo’s subconscious to get the information, but he’s brainwave is going in circles. The Bethacodon-prezident concludes that DiFool is directly under them, in the antipode. John reaches Mother Tree, the gigantic womb producing the scarabs, which he enters through the techno-vagina. Inside the Mother Tree he finds the Master of Dream, Kolbo-5. John thought he was dead, but he explains that he’s from another dimension and that there are many realities. John starts to slowly remember the past, and he makes the sacred book of the Incal in a table. Upon touching it, he has a vision of Luz and fully remembers what happened. Kolbo-5 (who like the shape-shifting robot is actually extension of Elohim) senses the tantalic probe approaching. John has a now clear mission: he must find Luz again, and with the power of their love will become the universal antidote. John is launched from the Mother Tree as the Tantatic probe destroys it. John promises to find Luz even if he must go to the ends of the cosmos. Deepo’s future is unknown.